Lynda Robinson - Slayer of Gods

Meren remembered the other hymns and the inscriptions dictated by Akhenaten to be carved in his courtiers’ tombs. Paeans to himself, they were. Akhenaten was the living disk, unequaled, and there was no other. The king, the sun, was the source of all power, and none could escape his dominion. He remembered the tomb reliefs, in which everyone worshipped Akhenaten, and Akhenaten worshipped the Aten.

Something else stirred in Meren’s memory, something important, but it vanished when the king sighed and released one end of the papyrus. It rolled shut.

“Take care on this journey, Meren. Horizon of the Aten is now a place of misfortune, I think.”

Pain lanced into Meren’s heart as the king’s eyes became glassy with unshed tears. “Remember what they did to my brother’s body.”

“I do, majesty.”

Rabid with lust for vengeance, the heretic’s enemies had tried to destroy his soul and that of Nefertiti by destroying their mummified bodies. They hadn’t succeeded in destroying the bodies completely, but Meren didn’t think that mattered. When Akhenaten died and his ka journeyed to the netherworld, he faced the judgment of the very gods he tried to destroy. Meren shivered as he contemplated Akhenaten’s fate.

Absolute annihilation. His soul must have been obliterated. Meren tried to imagine the absence of existence, the nothingness, of an erased ka. It was as if he stood on the brink of a cliff looking over the edge into an endless void. This was surely Akhenaten’s fate. Meren only hoped it had not been Nefertiti’s. They looked at each other, he and pharaoh. This unspoken fear lay between them, binding them, driving them. He waited for the king to speak of it, but Tutankhamun had done with exposing his innermost secrets. The boy disliked making himself vulnerable, even to Meren in whom he confided much. He almost started when Tutankhamun touched his arm gently.

“My majesty wishes you to guard yourself well on this journey, Meren,” said the king.

Meren smiled. “Thy majesty may be correct that the gods look with ill favor upon those who go to Horizon of the Aten. But I won’t be there long, and I’ll have Anath to protect me.”

“Good. Anath is worth an entire company of charioteers. There is no other woman like her.”

On the evening of the day his father sailed for Horizon of the Aten, Kysen dallied on a wharf near the Caverns. He heard the noise of hammers coming across the river. Someone was working at the naval docks by torchlight.

At the moment he was disguised as Nen, a scribe fallen on hard times who dealt in other people’s secrets. Nen sold information for valuable goods-metals, expensive woods or stones such as malachite and lapis lazuli. Nen lived in the dark world of thieves, corrupt government officials, whores, and murderers. He was supposed to be the sixth son of the assistant to the steward of a minor noble. From a family with numerous children, he had little wealth, but a taste for luxuries, and he didn’t care how he acquired them. In the Caverns he was known for his clever heart and dislike of hard labor.

Nen dressed in a kilt with slightly tattered edges and a plain leather belt that had been mended in several places. His wig was one he’d gotten secondhand. It fit with the character he sought to portray. Once the wig had been finely plaited, and its tresses were cut short in back and were longer in front. Now the wig looked worn, and some of the locks were coming loose from the net of threads to which they were attached. Nevertheless, it was surely the cast-off headdress of a nobleman.

Secure in his disguise Kysen strolled down the Street of the Ibex and into the foreign quarter. The buildings in this area had been built tightly against each other in long, irregular rows, scarcely big enough for two people to squeeze by. The roads were dusty and littered with refuse and slops. More than once he had to dodge a cloud of dust from the broom of a homeowner or shopkeeper who used the street as a waste receptacle.

He shouldered through a group of sailors speaking one of the languages of the Asiatics outside a beer tavern, and turned down a passageway that led to an alley. He dodged an inebriated Syrian merchant who stumbled out of a house and tried to vomit, then lurched back inside. The door slammed, and Kysen was alone. He remained motionless, waiting. Soon other figures appeared in the passageway. One of them flitted up to him.

“We’re all here, lord.”

“Excellent, Reia. Five of us should be enough to deal with one fat merchant, don’t you think?”

“Yes, lord.”

Reia smiled at him. One of Meren’s most trusted charioteers, he ranked highest after Abu. Reia had risen through the ranks of the royal bodyguard. His father was a physician’s assistant, not a nobleman, and Kysen felt more at ease with him than with the charioteers who came from aristocratic families. Competition to become one of the company serving the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh was fierce, but Meren selected men by their character and skill as well as their lineage.

Almost as tall as a Nubian, with large hands and a severe expression, Reia was fanatically loyal to Meren, grateful to him for taking a chance on him despite his lack of high rank. Kysen knew how Reia felt. To be a commoner cast among noblemen was to be a duck swimming with crocodiles. He himself had been born to a carpenter who worked on the royal tombs but was adopted by Meren. He too loved Meren for his kindness and generosity, for he’d saved Kysen from his real father, Pawero. Kysen had taken beatings for any misfortune that befell Pawero. Eleven years ago, when Kysen was eight, Meren had purchased him from the carpenter. Since then he’d learned to be a nobleman, a role he was sure he’d never completely master.

Turning his attention back to the charioteers, he addressed Reia. “Very well. We’ll go in pairs and singly so as not to be too conspicuous. I’ve found out that our fat merchant Dilalu is going to visit the Divine Lotus, which we all remember well. According to my informant, Dilalu will meet with Ese, although I can’t imagine that lady enjoying his company.”

“She owns the Divine Lotus,” Reia said. “Perhaps she’s being hospitable.”

“Only if it suits her interests,” Kysen said.

“Indeed, Lord.”

With a salute, Reia and the others disappeared, and Kysen continued on his way. A short walk down a road at the edge of the foreign district brought him to his destination. He mounted the steps that led to the door and shoved it open to reveal a crowded central chamber designed to imitate a Greek villa. The great hall had a circular central hearth around which many customers had gathered against the chill of the evening.

Ese had decorated the place with frescoes of women in Greek dress with tight bodices that bared their breasts, flounced skirts, and gold rosette earrings. Geometric friezes bordered the scenes-spirals, zigzags, and stripes. By designing her tavern after a Greek megaron Ese attracted Egyptian customers to an exotic place, and foreign ones were drawn by the novelty of the serving maids, dancers, and hostesses dressed in the fashions displayed in the frescoes.

Walking over to a table laden with wine and beer jars, Kysen traded a small faience amulet on a string of shell beads for a jar of beer with a strainer. Holding it and a ceramic cup he wandered over to a corner and stood drinking and watching from the shadows. On mats and cushions throughout the room rested Greeks from Crete and Cyprus, nomads from the eastern desert, a wealthy trader from Corinth, and sailors from ships as far away as Rhodes and Tyre. The shadows far from the hearth provided lurking places for every kind of charlatan and predator attracted to the capital of a mighty empire. Pirates, corrupt government officials, and ordinary villains abounded. Kysen wasn’t looking for any of these; he was searching for Dilalu, the weapons merchant.